Best of Notable Quotables 1994 -- Media Research Center

The Best Notable Quotables of 1994:

The Seventh Annual Awards for the
Year’s Worst Reporting

Page 6 Contents:
	Which Way Is It? Dumbest Quote of the Year 1994 Award Judges
Page 1 \| Page 2 \| Page 3 \| Page 4 \| Page 5 \| Page 6

Which Way Is It?

First Place

Iran-Contra Report Castigates Reagan
Impeachment 'Should Have Been Considered,' Prosecutor Says
-- Washington Post, January 19.

Iran-Contra inquiry clears Reagan, Bush
Walsh alleges cover-up by top aides
-- Boston Globe, same day.

Runners-up:

"Stocks had their best performance in months this week, on news of sustained growth with negligible inflation, and the job picture is good as well. But does the President get credit? No."
-- ABC reporter Jack Smith, August 28 This Week with David Brinkley.

vs.

"The recovery of the 1990s does not seem to be translating into better living standards. Wages are generally flat, job creation last month slowed, and the new jobs are often low-pay, dead-end service jobs, roughly one-fifth of them with temporary agencies."
-- Jack Smith, same show, one week later.

Dumbest Quote of the Year

First Place

"Around the global village, women cheered and grown men wept. At his press conference, [Gold medal-winning speed skater Dan] Jansen paused to take a call from the President, the man who's made America safe again for tears."
-- Newsweek Senior Writer David A. Kaplan, February 28 news story.

Runners-up:

"To watch this President connect with people emotionally is an awesome thing. It's a raw, needy, palpable, electrifying thing that happens. There was no smile. It's as if he's soaking up the people like he's soaking up the sun, with the warmth pouring deep and direct into his political soul and recharging him, refilling him somehow once again with his own humanity and some sense of his role in the destiny of his country. Then, the hunger slaked, the great beast of Need fed once again, it seemed you could almost see the gratitude pouring off his brow like sweat as he made his way."
-- Washington Post reporter Phil McCombs, March 30 Style section story on Clinton vacationing in California.

"Hillary Rodham Clinton is as pious as she is political. Methodism, for her, is not just a church but an extended family of faith that defines her horizons....If the Kennedy era was Camelot and the Reagan White House a ranchero on the Potomac, the Clinton presidency -- in the figure of its formidable First Lady -- is Washington's Methodist Moment."
-- Newsweek reporter Kenneth L. Woodward, October 31 story.

"I think liberalism lives -- the notion that we don't have to stay where we are as a society, we have promises to keep, and it is liberalism, whether people like it or not, which has animated all the years of my life. What on Earth did conservatism ever accomplish for our country? It was people who wanted to change things for the better."
-- Charles Kuralt talking with Morley Safer on the CBS special, One for the Road with Charles Kuralt, May 4.

"I suspect that as long as the peccadilloes remain within reason, the American people will have great tolerance for a President who has not only seen the sunshine of Oxford, but also the dusky Dunkin' Donuts of the soul."
-- Newsweek Senior Writer Joe Klein, January 3 issue.

1994 Award Judges

Ray Archer, Arizona Republic editorial writer
Brent Baker, Editor of MediaWatch & Notable Quotables
Mark Belling, talk show host, WISN, Milwaukee
Neal Boortz, talk show host, WSB in Atlanta
L. Brent Bozell III, Chairman, the Media Research Center
David Brudnoy, WBZ Radio and TV commentator, Boston
Priscilla Buckley, Senior Editor of National Review
Don Cook, Program Director, WCHS in Charleston, West Virginia
John Corry, American Spectator "Presswatch" columnist
Sandy Crawford, Editor of TV, etc.
Mark Davis, talk show host, WBAP, Dallas/Ft. Worth
Midge Decter, author
Jim Eason, talk show host, KGO in San Francisco
Mark Gilman, talk show host, WAVA, Washington, D.C.
Tim Graham, Co-Editor of Notable Quotables
Johnny Hart, cartoonist, creator of B.C. and The Wizard of Id
Kirk Healy, talk show host, WDBO in Orlando
Pat Hurley, anchor, WYHS-TV, Miami; talk show host, WFTL
Les Jameson, talk show host, WLAC in Nashville
Marie Kaigler, radio talk show host, Detroit
Cliff Kincaid, writer and broadcaster
Paul Koloski, Editorial Editor, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
John Leonard, talk show host, N. Ft. Myers
Jason Lewis, talk show host, KSTP, Minneapolis/St. Paul
Tony Macrini, talk show host, WNIS in Norfolk
Patrick McGuigan, Chief editorial writer, Daily Oklahoman
Jan Mickelson, talk show host, WHO in Des Moines
Wes Minter, talk show host, WCCO in Minneapolis
Robert Novak, syndicated columnist; television commentator
Kate O'Beirne, Vice President of the Heritage Foundation; panelist, PBS To the Contrary
Dr. Marvin Olasky, Professor of Journalism, U. of Texas at Austin
Star Parker, President of Coalition on Urban Affairs; talk show
host, KGER in Los Angeles
Mike Pintek, talk show host, KDKA in Pittsburgh
Wladyslaw Pleszczynski, Managing Editor, American Spectator
Michael Reagan, syndicated radio talk show host
Mike Rosen, talk show host, KOA; columnist, Denver Post
William Rusher, Distinguished Fellow, Claremont Institute
Marc Ryan, editorial writer, Waterbury Republican-American
Melanie Scarborough, ed. writer, Richmond Times-Dispatch
Ted J. Smith III, journalism professor, Virginia Commonwealth U.
Philip Terzian, syndicated and Providence Journal columnist
Peter Wilkinson Thiele, talk show host, KSTP, Minneapolis/St.Paul
Cal Thomas, syndicated columnist; TV and radio talk show host
R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., Editor-in-Chief of The American Spectator
Carl Wiglesworth, talk show host, WOAI, San Antonio
Armstrong Williams, syndicated radio talk show host
Dick Williams, Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist
Walter Williams, economics professor, George Mason U. and syndicated columnist
Thomas Winter, Editor of Human Events
Barry Young, talk show host, KFYI in Phoenix

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